The present invention relates to an improved distillation apparatus which is particularly suited for domestic use and which requires very little care or monitoring once placed in operation.
Distillation devices of the prior art tended to be bulky and have required costly installation, particularly where large quantities of distilled water were required. In addition, expensive monitoring devices have often been necessary where such units were intended to operate unattended so as to minimize the possibility of overflow or damage which is a frequent difficulty in the event water fails to be supplied continuously to the unit. As a result of these factors, one of the chief drawbacks of the presently available devices has been their cost so that generally only persons living in areas having marginal water quality would resort to the purchase of such devices. However, with the increasing congestion in municipal areas and the instability of water supplies in other localities, the demand for purified water has markedly increased.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a distillation apparatus that is compact yet highly efficient in terms of output and, due to its simplicity, can be manufactured at a significant cost saving over many devices of the prior art. In addition, the device of the present invention can be manufactured on a scale so that it can be portable and will require no special installation in terms of plumbing or electrical power. Further, the apparatus of this invention has its parts arranged such that periodic cleaning of the device can be readily effected without any major disassembly of the parts and which are arranged such that the intervals between cleanings will be significantly longer than has previously been the case.
The foregoing and other advantages of the present invention will become apparent as consideration is given to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which: